So I guess if you wanted to criticize a regime or disagree eventually there will be no anonymity on the internet and under the guise of “slander” your identity can be gathered by about anyone.
“Mommy those meany meany stinking heads said I was obese! Please make it stop!”
Remember Teen suicide is only because of bullying. Sticking up for yourself is not the answer. The answer is “social justice” and dollar signs. Depression could never be caused by anything in the home. Of course not The beavers raise everyone exactly right…
Obesity is because of sugar drinks. Not lack of initiative, bad diet, or exercise. I mean why should we blame the parent who buys the junk food, stuffs their kid full of Chicken McNuggets and lets them play xbox all day long or the adult who munches on fried food and cheetos all day while surfing facebook. Hell no. They could not help themselves. They can’t make basic decisions like diet or exercise. Instead we should have the government make all of those decisions for us because after all, we are all very very stupid and need total guidance from narcissist leaders who crave power.
Being politically correct is the only way to achieve utopia.
Utopia is defined by someone else doing all the work.
Lets gather together in stupidity everyone and chant.
“Oh fearless leaders, guide us, direct us, show us the way forward. We need to guided in every single decision in life since we are incapable of making even basic decisions. In order to do a better job in your “guidance” please put cameras everywhere, monitor us always, correct us immediately and whatever you do never let us disagree with your guidance. You know best.Oh and I find the world “freedom” revolting and offensive, it is always followed by violence and discourse. Please remove it from society and make that word illegal so I can sleep at night. Thank you Big Brother”.
Last time I checked, “hurt feelings” aren’t actionable for damages for libel or slander. It’s been a while since I studied such subjects, but I’m pretty sure the definitions used to be:
publication + audience + untrue + caused people to shun and / or avoid + economic loss
As such, I’d have thought that there would need to be a pretty high burden of proof in order to require a site to hand over confidential data (I’m pretty sure the Data Protection Act is there for a reason).
Given the implications to website traffic of losing anonymity (in the same way that mooted laws to allow children to track down biological parents had a dramatic impact on the number of donors to sperm banks), I’d have thought that these websites would go the exact same route that every other publication medium has: You escape prosecution for publication of defamatory comments by taking down inappropriate comments based on user reporting. That’s why even this very post has a “report post” button attached to it.
In short, whilst the Daily Mail loves to sensationalise these things, I’d be very surprised if the legislation emerges in anything like the form they suggest.
Here in the united states if you call someone fat online you are now technically “cyber bullying” that person.
If that person is non heterosexual or a minority it is not only cyber bullying alone now but has now become a hate crime and gets more repercussions added on.
Of course if the person saying fat is a white male they are now also racist who are committing a crime involving cyber bullying.
If they make more than the victim then they are obviously committing these racist cyber hate crimes because they don’t pay enough in taxes…
And of course if the person who called the other person fat has ever played any video game other than Mario cart then they have been influenced by violent games and the game maker must also pitch to pay the victim.
Oh well the road to hell was paved with good intentions and freedom is an illusion when your government demands nationwide censorship on any dissenting thought.
I’ve always thought that there could be a fairly simple way around all of this: some form of validated user account, validated by some central body, possibly governmental, possibly not. You would have to submit your real name, address and information to that central body, with some form of proof, along with a list of online user names you use or want to use. Then, sites could opt in to whether they want to use this as a sign-in system (just as many sites can now allow you to sign in using your Facebook account). The way I see it, the main problems with comments and idiocy on the internet at the moment are:
• Users can sign up, using some anonymous account and user name, safe in the knowledge that if they act like a moron, no one will ever be able to trace the hateful comments back to the person living in the real world. For teenagers, whose socialising pre-frontal cortexes have yet to fully develop, this gives free rein to their immaturity. Likewise for certain adults.
• On the other hand, the ability to have anonymous user accounts is very liberating. It means you can sign up for sites and get involved in discussions without any fear that someone who knows you in the real world might find out. That’s great. If you’re from a repressive community and are different in some way, you can talk to people online without fear of being discovered. Or, if you are an avid beer mat collector and you’d rather your boss didn’t know, you can chat with other beer mat weirdos (not being judgemental there) on the 'net safe in your anonymity.
So the problem is preserving anonymity while also making that anonymity a privilege, something that isn’t guaranteed, so that users still feel the same sorts of social pressures to act decently as they do in their everyday life. Thus, I’ve always thought that some system whereby you know your real name and address is associated with your online persona might help that. The trouble with this idea, of course, is that it relies on that central body behaving sensibly, which in reality never happens…
I agree; Sorry world, you just have to accept that one of the side-effects of giving people freedom is that people can choose what to do with that freedom.
The overwhelming majority will use it for good, but inevitably some will always use it for stupid.
(1) If you have a facebook account why would you add a “friend” if you did not know that person.
(2) If said evil friend said something you didn’t like you can “unfriend them”.
(3) Owners of sites should have the discretion to moderate if they so choose. Most sites I have seen have some sense of “forum” rules" and if broken moderators usually step in or give the Daus Boot.
I don’t know how it is over the other side of the pond but in the US the idea was that a warrant-less search was overreaching. In the modern age of Digital data I think privacy policies and rules and regulations should maybe be looked over and updated with some common sense not with an eye for political marketing.
I do feel there should be some method for factual Identity verification. (Think of an Online Passport) that is used for financial transactions over the internet to cut down on fraud as an option but not something that is mandatory so private companies or governments can track your every move on the internet. Something maybe Banks or Investment firms offer their customers to access their information.
